Basic Guide for Manufacturers
GET GOOD SKILLS Minimum for production Industry 3 Mass production 4 Advanced Industry 4 Supply chain management 3 Minimum to buy materials and sell the product cost/time efficiently Trade 4 Accounting 3 Broker relations 3 Daytrading 3 Marketing 3 Margin trading 3 Visibility 2 Procurement 3 Recommended for production Industry 5 Mass production 5 Advanced mass production 4 Advanced Industry 5 Supply chain management 4 Recommended to buy materials and sell the product cost/time efficiently Accounting 4 Broker relations 4 Daytrading 4 Marketing 4 Margin trading 4 Visibility 3 Procurement 4 (for extra buy/sell order slots, stop when you have enough) Trade 4->5 Retail 1->5 Wholesale 1->5 Tycoon 1->4 CHOOSE YOUR SELLING LOCATION As you can read in yearly economic report, these are biggest trade hubs of EVE (which means you can sell high volume here): 1.Jita 2.Amarr 3.Hek 4.Dodixie 5.Rens Jita is supersaturated, but hub is where you want to be if you manufacture and sell in volume. For small volume and higher profit per item focus on mission hubs or lesser trade hubs. Of course manufacture as near as possible to your sale location and still try to stay in reach of good raw materials supply. CHOOSING START-UP ITEMS You should target Tech 1 items that fall in as many of the following categories as possible: - Items that don't have named version just tech 1 and tech 2 - Items that have high skill requirement for tech 2 version - Items that are compact enough to be moved around in industrial - Items that are used a lot in popular fittings - Items that have cheap BPO (buy BPC to test water if BPO costs more than 10mil). Some guidelines: - Biggest problem with any production is actually constant supply of affordable materials so plan around that. - Buy minerals that are needed in large amounts locally - trit, pyerite, mex, isogen. That means make buy order with range "Station" because you will save money and time. All other materials pay-of to get flown in because they are needed in small quantity and price differences are high even inside same region. - Diversity of items you can manufacture is the key. Over time some items stop being profitable and some start again. - When producing large amounts don't oversupply regional market. Check in history tab, in market window, amounts that are sold daily. Try to manufacture batches that will sell with current trade volumes in next 1-2 days until you get feel for demand and competition. Move to another region and supply them with that item in same manner. Soon you will see how often and in how big batches you need to produce that item. - Use haulers for rent AKA courier contracts and calculate price of hauling in final price. Very important detail When calculating profitability, it is not all about profit margin for specific item. Actually most important thing is production line profitability which is profit margin multiplied by number of items produced per day per production line. Number of production lines and utilization of each line is the choke point of manufacturing empire. EXAMPLE: If you can produce 200pcs of item A in one day on one production line and earn 50k ISK per piece (sale price - raw mat&manufacturing&transport cost). You will earn 10mil ISK that day. If you produce item B that can be produced in volume of 4 items per day and you earn 1mil ISK per piece. You will earn only 4mil ISK that day. You will earn more over same amount of time with item A over B. That is also the reason why your BPO/BPC has to have P.E. researched not only M.E. - to speed production up and free production line for next item you will produce. EXAMPLES OF PROFITABLE ITEMS: "Small" stuff 1. Heavy and Medium shield/armor drones 2. Large EWAR drones (900 series) 3. L, M and S Mobile warp dest. 4. Warfare Link modules specially mining ones 5. Command Proc. 6. Bomb Launcher 7. Covert and normal Cynosural Field Gen. 8. Interdiction Sphere Launcher 9. X-Large Shield Booster ... "Big" stuff 1. Capital Construction Parts (only capital component used to produce lot of other diff. stuff not just capital ships) 2. All Fighters and Fighter bombers (not highly profitable but in constant demand) 3. XL guns (currently XL blasters are good) 4. Capital modules (armor Rep., sh. Booster, remote shield, armor and energy) 5. Infrastructure Hub 6. POS Structures (some of them) ... "Bad" stuff Ships are bad items for fresh solo producer. There are few issues/details about ship production. 1.BPO is expensive For anything bigger then frigate use researched BPCs (10run researched copies for BS cost 10mil or less so that's <1mil extra to count in per battleship). Only when you have production going for some time and specific ship sells well you should invest in BPO and get it researched. 2.It is hard to gather materials Cheapest BS requires 400000m3 per day per production line AND that climbs to 3x the amount for the best BS. Imagine how much you would have to move when running 10 production lines which are optimal number per character. So if you really want to produce ships, pair with mining corporation for good supply. 3.Small volume can be produced per day per production line That makes overall profitability low even if there is a good profit margin per ship. Battle ships (BS) - 6 per day. Cruiser © - 9 per day. Frigates (F) - 18 per day. (x1.25 with researched P.E.) 4.Manufacturing location <-> sale location problem Bigger the product, more time and money you will spend moving it around. Make ISK and enjoy EVE! Wiki written by : Evareus Tendoran